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Insights

Beer Insight | Consumption

James Hidden

Managing Director

Ogilvy & Mather

James.Hidden@ogilvy.com

Brands expect

healthier brews

will add growth

Brands should consider how to leverage surging health and wellness trends to drive incremental growth because consumers are looking for ways to have their (low-calorie) cake and eat it too. This explosive rise of the calorie-and-carb-counting has produced active lifestyle focused Michelob Ultra in the US, zero alcohol beers like Budweiser Prohibition and San Miguel 0.0 and the “Dry January” marketing campaigns in the UK. This trend is also a threat to overall beer consumption, as younger drinkers drink less and switch to new, better-for-you alternatives; lighter, lower carb “hard seltzers” in the US are a perceived healthier option for a predominantly female audience increasingly conscious of the impact of alcohol on their wellness regimes. Furthermore, this shift may well lead to the death of “light beer” as we know it, as seen by the ongoing steep declines of the Big 3 (Bud Light, Coors Light, and Miller Lite) in the US. In the quest for new revenue streams and the future of the category, it really will be a case of “survival of the fittest.”